Robert Bouland

Managing PartnerHilco Industrial Acquisitions

Robert Bouland joined Hilco in 2014 when he started Hilco Industrial Acquisitions, a Joint-Venture between his old company CBI and Hilco Industrial from the USA.

Prior to joining Hilco, Robert owned a number of companies active in Industrial Asset Sales in the Netherlands, UK, Germany, Switzerland and USA. He started out selling Machinery & Equipment all over the world when many of the large European Industrial companies restructured their operations and a number of large Shipbuilding companies went out of business in the 70´s. he moved to Houston, TX to continue his activities there for 5 years and after selling his business there, he returned to Europe, buying entire packages of assets from defunct companies and sometimes reorganizing the companies into healthy organizations. His many years of experience has given him great knowledge of asset- values.

Robert got his start selling used machinery 48 years ago, starting with the sale of machinery and equipment for Werkspoor (Amsterdam) who reorganized their activities after merging with Stork. After that he organized hundreds of sales for numerous well known public companies throughout Europe, who closed production facilities. In 1979 he acquired a 50% share in PMC, at that time one of the largest used machinery dealers in the USA. From 1994 - 1996 Robert held a two year term the President of the EAMTM, a European Association of Machinery Merchants.

In 2000, Robert sold his business to DoveBid in assuming the role of President for DoveBid Europe. In 2003 he started CBI (Core Business Industries) and continued building his experience by buying and selling many other closed down plants throughout Europe, including selling a complete steel mill to a company in the Middle East, liquidating the assets for GM Holden in Melbourne Australia, and selling Excell in Singapore to a Chinese investor.